Scene #7119: The Mad Dog and the Slightly Less Mad Tengu

Owner	Pose
Arkae Zellar	There's an arena here. Arkae's never been here before, she's here now. Naturally, she decides she absolutely needs to use it, and so she gets on the radio and calls up someone who will probably jump on and duel her at a moment's notice. Besides, she has a few new tricks in mind she wants to try out, and another member of the Concord is less likely to spread that info around than one of their actual enemies. The Shrine's been configured to something that Arkae figures splits the difference between familiar settings for her (medieval fantasy) and Majima (modern urban japan): stereotypical olde japanese style. Houses with thin paper walls, bamboo deer scarers every five meters (TONK), rice fields worked by people wearing oversized straw hats. Occasionally a random samurai wanders by, mumbling some backstory about not having a master or seeking the cursed sword that killed their father or something else cliche like that. She stands at the end of a street of houses, gear assembled and equipped, waiting for the Mad Dog to make his appearance.
Majima Goro	Majima knows his art. When he becomes visible, it's not awkwardly, from the end of the street, slowly marching forward. Arkae becomes aware of him about a block in front, stepping out from between houses. His baseball bat is slung over his shoulders, one hand firmly gripping the end. The wrist of the other dangles over the other, forcing him to slouch just a bit. His single eye focuses on Arkae, and he chuckles. Darkly. It's not his usual screech. "Arright. I'll do this shit for ya, eh?" He says, the bat dragged through his gloved fingers before being thrust into the ground. "'sides, I've been wonderin' what your whole deal's about." THOOM THOOM MAJIMA GORO HAND OF THE CONCORD He looks up at the false sky for a moment. "...But I'm a busy man, so don't fuckin' disappoint me! Show me what ya got!"
Arkae Zellar	("Oh, that is a nice entrance.") "What I got..." The tengu draws her sword, the curved blade dramatically glinting in the false sunlight. "Showing that off, I can gladly oblige. I get the feeling that you and I are similar in some ways..." She gets into a runner's crouch, and then charges down the block towards him, swinging her curved blade around as she does so. "Very... physical, styles!"
Majima Goro	Majima has only barely swung his bat back around into a fighting position by the time Arkae begins her assault. He's seemingly languid about it, up until the moment the sword begins to move. And then, he's simply moved. Not far. Just a few feet to the side. He's not feeling it yet, though. He's not even on fire. The counter-attack is minimal, but still brutal. While the adventurer recovers her swing, the bat is already swinging back, looking to strike right across her beak. "...Nehahah. Ya got more like that?"
Arkae Zellar	WHAM "Oh, I'm just getting started," says Arkae, rubbing her beak with her off hand as she takes a step back, sizing up Majima. How did he move like that...? She grabs a vial from her belt holster, smoothly uncorking it and splashing it against her blade. "I've got a lot of tricks..." She dives in again, trying to anticipate his movements a bit better now that she's seen him in action, swinging for where she thinks he'll be instead of where he is!
Majima Goro	Majima Goro isn't teleporting. He's just fast. Arkae's swing lands a bit better, landing on his jacketed arm, rather than the bat. "..Eh?!" Huh. There was something on that blade. He doesn't feel right. He disengages for a moment, springing backwards to pop open some sort of tube. A single tablet of..something is popped into his mouth, and then he's back in a fighting position. "Turmeric. Good for what ails ya, eh?! Neehahahah!" Alright. Now he's feeling a bit better. The bat is replaced with a knife, just in time for the fire to erupt. Purple, heatless flames. He takes a running step forward, and then...suddenly does a pirouette..and still moves forward. He's got his knife out, and he's like an obnoxious purple flaming tornado! At least only the knifecuts hurt, but it's no joke trying to dodge or block when he's moving as fast as he is, and he's trying to move to Zellar's flanks wherever possible.
Arkae Zellar	"I don't think tumeric... oh, nevermind," says Arkae, reasonably certain that Majima can't just neutralize her poisons by eating a random herb. (She turns out to be wrong.) Suddenly the battle gets considerably more flashy. Purple flames, and pirouettes? The alchemist goes for her belt holster again, grabbing another vial and uncorking it using the tip of her sword. This one gets applied not on the sword, but to the tengu, arkae smoothly pouring it directly down her throat. And then she rushes in... or rather, something else rushes her in. Water bubbles up at her feet, a cresting wave from seemingly nowhere, and instead of Arkae moving her feet she gets moved, the magical water shifting about and sending her surfing towards Majima! For her trouble, she gets cut up several times, but there's no helping that... but if she can just get in under his guard and apply another dose of sword-borne poisons...!
Majima Goro	Majima Goro has frankly never seen someone summon a wave of water to propel themselves like that. He's too busy cheering it on to actually set up a reasonable defense, and his flailing about mostly results in repeated cuts to his torso, again with the poisoned blade. "That was a fuckin' hoot! Alright. I like ya. Let's get serious." It's around this time that he draws his bat into his offhand. This time, as he starts to weave back and forth in a zig-zag towards the avian. One might ask how one uses a long blunt weapon and a short sharp one in concert. It turns out it mostly looks like using the blunt weapon at range to stun, and then sliding in to cut with the dagger, followed by using the dagger to parry, and swing the blunt weapon overhand. It's the staggeringly effective style of a man who refuses to acknowledge that his ideas and choices of weapon are terrible and nonsensical.
Arkae Zellar	"A- wait, a club and a dagger?" As it turns out that's a frighteningly effective combination of attacks, one that's keeping her from getting in close. She can parry one, and gets hit by the other, and blocking at long range means getting stabbed and blocking at short range means getting clubbed (Arkae doesn't know what baseball is yet, she thinks it's just a club of some sort). She disengages, pulling back, and then turns and wave-dashes for the closest house. As she does so, she yanks yet another vial out of her belt and hastily downs it... ... and when she reaches the side of the house, she runs up the wall without so much as missing a step, turns, and leaps at Majima, trying to strike from above him in order to get past that weapon combination!
Majima Goro	Running up the wall? Nice. Majima's able to raise his weapons, of course, but at some point gravity gets involved. The good news is, of course, that this means he's hit dead on, but..it's mostly just the weight of Arkae landing on him. This could have been much worse. He stumbles back and away, chuckling a bit. "Ehh. I told Arthur this new vibe was bullshit." He puts a hand on his jacket, ripping it off somehow in one fluid motion. No, there is no physical configuration of a jacket where you can grab it in your hand and pull to make it come off. This has never stopped anyone from Majima's world from performing this very act when it comes to shove. He's got a new plan, for whatever it's worth, but he needs the right moment. So for now, he's just going to keep Arkae busy. The weapons are gone, and he flares up blue. It turns out, apparently, that he doesn't terribly need weapons when he can just rush flat in and deliver a gloved punch to the throat.
Arkae Zellar	"HRK" Being punched in the throat sucks. Arkae's witty combat banter is nerfed until her airways recover enough that she doesn't need to focus soley on breathing over talking. The impact also causes her to drop her sword. In desperation, she reaches for the next closest thing, grasping at her belt for a random handful of vials and just... ... just sorta throwing them at Majima, trying to deter him long enough for her to recover and grab her sword and get some air- literally. She's not quite sure which glass bottles she threw at him, but on the other hand, the stuff there is generally potent enough that she won't need to.
Majima Goro	Majima Goro has, traditionally, fared poorly against ranged weaponry. And, straight out, by no means was he expecting a pile of glass potions from everywhere. Blocking that, as he foolishly attempts, mostly covers him in flaming, poisonous glass. The pain is, in fact, markedly excruciating. That does not, however, seem to stop him. Instead, he's flaring purple again, and with a speed that belies the..er, shards of glass and drops of potion that are still flying off of him, he rushes towards Arkae, and begins with a flurry of slashes and stabs that culminate in him eventually losing the knife entirely in the air. Wait. Wait, no, he's hopped back, spun around, and thrown a roundhouse that can't possibly hit Arkae. It turns out, however, that it CAN hit the knife, and send it spiralling into the bird's midsection.
Arkae Zellar	The knife stabs directly into Arkae's chest! "SQUAWK!" She stops cold, the hilt of it sticking out of her chest... ... until she reaches down and pulls it out. The blade's gotten tangled up in the absurd amount of pendants, amulets, chains of precious metal, charms, relics, necklaces, and other jewelry she's wearing, and didn't quite manage to pierce her. She's considerably slimmer than she looks underneath the puffy fantasy garb, as well. "Ah..." "... Well, I'm kinda glad everything's going to revert after this, since you scratched some of it up..." She picks out one of the charms from the tangle of jewelry. One that looks like a red bird. "I'm also glad I'm not actually about to burn you to death!" she calls cheerfully as she holds the relic up and makes a swinging motion towards Majima. FIREBALL!
Majima Goro	"..eh?" In the literal decades he's been doing that kickass knife trick, Majima's never once had -that- happen. "...Neheh...neahahah! That's fuckin' rich! You're a fuckin' riot! fuckin jewellery. Arright, I..." That relic. Wait. He's paid like, almost no attention to that shit going on with the textbox people, minus the time Haseo was a god for like a week. "Wait. Ain't that supposed to be with the--" FWOOSH ..And he's still standing, for a long moment, albeit charred, and his hair quite obviously on fire. "...Ah. ...Ah, shit. Hehhaaaaaa..." He just..topples over onto his back, arms spread. Yes. It's probably for the best that this was in the Shrine.
Arkae Zellar	"... Right... where's the reset controls..." --- Once she figures out how to get Majima back on his feet, she holds the relic up where he can see it. "Maybe it should be, like, with the others? But honestly I'm just going to hang onto it." She gives the necklace-attached relic a flick with a finger. "It's just too useful to like, stay in a box with the others, or wherever they're keeping them. I just left without turning mine back in, and nobody said anything."
Majima Goro	Majima Goro puts his jacket back on, rolling his shoulders a few times. "Eh. Adrenaline pumped one way or the other, eh? I like it. Glad you're on our side." As Arkae explains the situation, he considers this for a moment. And then he cackles. "Neehahahahah! Ya just fuckin' took it? Yeah, that's startin' ta sound like the level of attention I expect outta everyone of the Paladins who ain't that Lilian chick. I ain't got a hard opinion on that Finny place now that Haseo ain't becomin' the god of it, so do as ya want, I guess."
Arkae Zellar	Arkae gives a big beaky grin. "Heh, yeah... well, if you've got that attitude..." "I'll let you know," she continues, conspiratorially. "I've probably been paying more attention than they have..." She digs into her bag of holding (reaching her arm in further than should be physically possible, as usual) and pulls out a spiral-bound notepad. "The place is supposed to reset, once we're done with all this... like, it's reset before now, that's the point of all this. Like one of those 'video games'... or a stageplay, right? The heroes win, and then the next time the play is put on the world is as it was." "So I've been taking notes on where all the valuable stuff is. When the world resets again... I'm going to rob it blind of all the treasures it has."
Majima Goro	Majima Goro scratches his head a bit, reaching out to take a look at the notebook. "...I mean, ya takin' a risk there that they might not even reset it, but..shit, I like it." He nods approvingly. "Ya don't lose too much if they don't..." He rests his chin on two fingers, rubbing at his goatee. "Yeah. Ya might want a distraction first, somethin' ta keep 'em from doing the same thing. Remember, that Shyra chick and that Pazkar guy know where the treasures are too."
Arkae Zellar	Arkae looks like she just bit into something sour. "Oh darn it, you're right..." The relic and the notebook are both put back where she's keeping them. "Distractions, distractions... I don't want to go so far as to cause like a whole disaster to keep them busy, but..." "... I'll figure out something. Maybe something fake. Like..." "..." A lightbulb goes off. "Hey Majima," she says, turning to him. "What's the going rate for a favor from you these days?"
Majima Goro	Majima Goro stretches his arms out, cracking his knuckles outwards. "Ahhh. That's gonna fuckin' depend, ain't it." He pulls out an entire bottle of whiskey, starting on slugging it back as he talks. "Whaddaya thinkin'? Cause if it's just me poppin' outta a treasure chest at these assholes, that ain't much, but if ya expectin' me and the boys ta whip up an extra village outta nowhere to get their attention, that's a fuckton more, ya know?"
Arkae Zellar	"I-" Arkae gives him a side eye. "How'd you guess I was going with the 'fake village' plan?"
Majima Goro	Majima Goro swigs his bottle back. "Cause I run the only fuckin' construction company anyone in the Multiverse seems ta have heard of."